WUHAN — Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli has called for better development of the “golden waterway” on the Yangtze River.

The Yangtze River economic belt is important as it promises coordinated development along the river and helps protect the environment, Zhang said during a visit to Wuhan City in central China’s Hubei province.

Good planning is key to development of the belt, he said, calling for efforts to avoid overlapping harbor projects and other construction, and prevent pollution of the waterway.

Problems such as the congestion of main waterways along the Yangtze should be solved, he said.

Zhang pressed for a comprehensive traffic system to serve the region beside the waterway, including railways, highways, flights and pipelines.

Local governments along the river should work together and with a strict sense of environmental protection, he said.

Eleven provinces and municipalities are included in the belt — Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan and Guizhou. The belt along China’s longest river covers more than one fifth of the country geographically, or 2 million square kilometers.